Showing posts with label chabert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chabert. Show all posts

Monday, December 22, 2025

Chabert Watch: Home Front (2002) (aka: The Scoundrel's Wife)




Watched:  12/22/2025
Format:  Disc
Viewing:  First
Director:  Glen Pitre


There's a lot going on in Home Front (aka: The Scoundrel's Wife - 2002).  Some might argue too much.  

A period piece taking place mostly during World War II, it's about a woman and her family living on Louisiana's Gulf Coast, who are pariahs already when the war breaks out.  It seems some years before the woman (Tatum O'Neal) and her husband may have gotten up to misdeeds that will be shared later.

It's a bit of a frustrating movie because it's a look at some real life things - that German U-Boats were off the US coast causing havoc, there was concern about internal collaborators, etc....  And some of this forgotten history is illuminated brilliantly, really, as O'Neal's family is awakened by a fire's glow off in the distance, out over the water as a U-Boat hits a shipping vessel.  

Meanwhile, life in the small fishing village carries on for O'Neal and her teenage son, Blue, and her daughter, Florida (Chabert), just aging into adulthood.  A doctor moves in nextdoor, but he has what seems to be a German accent (Julian Sands).  Meanwhile, the town Priest (Tim Curry) wrestles with alcohol.

Wednesday, December 17, 2025

Chabert Re-Watch: Christmas at Castle Hart (2021)





Watched:  I think 12/12/2025
Format:  Hallmark
Viewing:  Second?
Director:  Stefan Scaini

Job: Phony event planner
Location of story:  Ireland somewhere
new skill: Faking it til she's making it
Job of Man: Earl?  Duke?  Something./ Architect
Goes to/ Returns to: Goes to
Food: I forget


My intention with these posts is not to get overly meta, but when this movie ended I said to Jamie:

I rewatched this one because I barely wrote it up before, and couldn't remember it at all, and now that I've rewatched it, I am not going to remember it in three weeks.

Y'all, I didn't even remember to write up Christmas at Castle Hart (2021) the night we watched it.  And I only rewatched it because I felt I needed to write it up.

I don't know what kind of personal purgatory I've sent myself to with my whimsy, but here we are.

On to the show.

Chabert plays a caterer who gets fired from her gig because her sister (Ali Hardiman) is a real piece of work but Chabert is a good girl and supports her dimwitted sister.  The two head to Ireland to look up some family genealogy since they have the holidays and time to spare (and famously no one is short-handed for catering help during Christmas, and money is not a thing in Hallmarkland).  

Their plan:  When they get back to the US, they plan to start their own event planning company, but whilst in Ireland - drink?  

Well, instead of a relaxing time in the Emerald Isle confusion and lies abound, and Chabert poses as her former boss - an event planner to the stars, hitching herself to a major local event in a sleepy town in a generic North American version of "Ireland" based on post cards and Lucky Charms commercials.

Friday, December 12, 2025

Chabert Watch: Slightly Single in LA (2013)

Ah, the "look at our galaxy of stars" rom-com poster.  Always a promising sign.




Watched:  12/12/2025
Format DVD
Viewing:  First
Director:  Christie Will Wolf


Editor's note:  we've decided to Thelma and Louise our way through the remaining Chabert filmography.  I've been looking to see if I can find the Chabert films I haven't seen yet via very cheap used copies or online (one way or another).  


Ugh.  

File this under "this movie was never aimed at me" but also "never write fiction that is a thinly veiled version of a story about yourself".

Christie Will Wolf (here listed as Christie Will) is the writer/ director/ producer of Slightly Single in LA (2013).  These days she's a prolific director and producer of Hallmark movies, and I've seen some of them in whole or part.  She also was the mastermind behind 2011's Holiday Heist, one of the hardest-to-watch movies viewed during ChabertQuest 2025.  

The movie is a rom-com/ would-be Sex in the City about the foibles of a group of women and their token gay friend (Jonathan Bennet).  The story follows around Chabert's character, Dale, who has had bad luck in love.  But what's played for comedy is merely comedy shaped but at no time made me so much as crack a smile.  The movie feels like it's about someone with terrible risk analysis and decision making skills.  But the movie is written, directed and produced by one person - who seems totally unaware that the characters are not just unrelatable, but deeply unsympathetic.  

This lead character sucks.  But she sucks the least of all of the characters, so... yay?

Wednesday, December 10, 2025

Chabert Holiday Rewatch: The Tree That Saved Christmas (2014)



My original rules for ChabertQuest 2025 included not re-watching and re-posting on movies I'd already seen and written up.  Somehow it bothered me that I didn't rewatch this one even though I'd previously seen The Tree That Saved Christmas (2014) and wrote it up back during lockdown.  

All I remembered was that the snow was pretty much non-existent (in Vermont on December) and maybe you could see some blankets thrown down to double as snow.  So, I decided to give it one more whirl to make sure no Chabert-stone was left unturned during ChabertQuest.  

This may have aired on Hallmark, but, is so, it's a small, indie movie that was licensed to Hallmark, which was their model for a while.  These days, I think they own a lot more of the movies that they air.  Thus, older movies like this are out there, but not officially Hallmark at this point.  

This movie arrives in Year 2 of Chabert making movies for Hallmark-type outfits.  She'd made Matchmaker Santa in 2013, and by 2014 was in A Royal Christmas, which is kind of considered a Hallmark classic by Hallmark nerds, and is arguably the real start of Chabert's rise to Hallmark supremacy.  In 2014, for good or ill, she also made this movie.

Sunday, December 7, 2025

Chabert Christmas Watch: She's Making a List (2025)




Watched:  12/06/2025
Viewing:  First
Director:  Stacey N. Harding

Job: Spy for the Naughtylist
Location of story:  Unclear but LA?/ Snowy generic USA
new skill: Empathy
Job of Man: Restaurant consultant
Goes to/ Returns to: Goes to?
Event: Christmas Eve
Food: dessert pizza


Here you go, Randolph.

For a while, actor Lacey Chabert has been tapped The Queen of Hallmark Christmas.   At the start of 2025, Hallmark signed an exclusive contract with Chabert, and as far as I know, the only such contract ever signed by the media concern, locking in talent.  What numbers they had on hand to drive that decision must have been pretty interesting.

This year, Chabert would go on to star in a Halloween movie,  this movie - She's Making a List (2025) , and in January, she's starring in a movie about being stranded in paradise.  She has both her own product line in Hallmark stores, and Keepsake - a line of ornaments at Hallmark - released a Lacey Chabert ornament.  Not a "here's a Star Trek character" ornament, just a Lacey Chabert ornament.  

Just before starting on this post, NathanC sent me an article from Variety that states Chabert is filming a Hallmark movie at Disney World for Christmas 2026.  So, she's doing okay, if you're wondering.  

So, for Hallmark and Chabert both, a LOT was riding on the film.  Would all this investment pay off? 

Saturday, December 6, 2025

Chabert Watch: Hometown Legend (2002)





Watched:  12/05/2025
Format:  DVD
Viewing:  First
Director:  James Anderson (I fully believe this is an Alan Smithee name for someone)


Editor's note:  we've decided to Thelma and Louise our way through the remaining Chabert filmography.  I've been looking to see if I can find the Chabert films I haven't seen yet via very cheap used copies or online one way or another.  This one set me back about $6.10.

First, this DVD, purchased as "used" from a Goodwill had never been opened.  Not since the movie was released in, like, 2003 on DVD.  It was wrapped in some sort of transport wrap from the seller, then the original shrink wrap, and THEN still had the vertical AND horizontal security stickers across the packaging intact.

This movie was produced by a Christian production company and some involved are still in movies.  As I bought this on a 2000's-era DVD, it has bonus features including a full Director's commentary I really want to listen to.  But, more importantly, there's all kinds of bonus content about Jerry B. Jenkins - which the DVD itself says is the most famous writer you never heard of.  Apparently he's the mastermind behind this movie?  And (deep sigh) the guy who wrote the Left Behind books.  And a bunch of other stuff.  This seems to be the Jenkins family parlaying their book money into movies.

But, yeah, he essentially uses the bonus features to promote himself.  Amazing choice.

Sunday, November 30, 2025

Neo-Noirvember Chabert Watch: The Pleasure Drivers (2006)





Watched:  11/29/2025
Format:  DVD
Viewing:  First
Director:  Andrzej Sekula

Editor's note:  we've decided to Thelma and Louise our way through the remaining Chabert filmography.  I've been looking to see if I can find the Chabert films I haven't seen yet via very cheap used copies or online one way or another.  This one set me back about $5.

Truly a product of a particular decade, somehow The Pleasure Drivers (2006) arrived about seven years after that decade.  It's another LA-based low-budget crime movie, with this one peppering itself with vague philosophical aspirations, but what they are saying lacks any insight and is dumb.  And, the movie is entirely populated by characters who take their cues from how human beings behave from other movies, leaving us with weird third-generation xeroxes of motivation instead of anything identifiable as human.  

Everything about the film feels late-90's, part of the post Pulp Fiction indie boom.  It's three stories that loosely intertwine, and, of course, collide at the end.  But none of the three stories is very interesting and none of the characters terribly watchable.  

Monday, November 24, 2025

Chabert Holiday Micro-Watch: Maybe This Christmas (2025)



Chabert may have signed an exclusive deal with Hallmark for making movies and selling some lovely products in Hallmark stores, but after last year's slam dunk ad with Philosophy, she's now got a gig with Maybelline.  And while we don't believe she could possibly have a blemish, this year she's re-teaming with Dustin Milligan to sell concealer.

Over a handful of 30-second episodes, we get more story than most Hallmark movies.

All 5 episodes in one convenient video:



Sunday, November 23, 2025

"Hallmark Channel's Christmas Concert" (2019) might be the Hallmark Channel's Star Wars Holiday Special





This item does not appear on the IMDB for Ms. Lacey Chabert under "actor", but under "self" so I'd initially missed it.  But it popped up on Hallmark as an option, and I wasn't going to not watch it.  

So, what is it?

It's a bizarre artifact of where Hallmark was in 2019, I guess.  And the watchword for the whole show is "awkward".  There clearly was a lack of rehearsal time, and a spirit of "we're pros, we'll wing it" that doesn't play particularly well.  No one here is Bob Hope and keeping this on the rails.

The show is *not* exactly a concert, but kinda, sorta framed like one of those old-school Christmas specials where a celebrity pretends they're in their house.  Lacey Chabert is throwing a party where other Hallmark stars are her guests, but she's also acknowledging the camera (and sometimes awkwardly looking at it).  

One-by-one, a series of Hallmark stars come in, and then they each sing a Christmas standard in what I assume is not actually Chabert's livingroom and kitchen.  But it's not a set - I'm pretty sure that's a real house.  No set would be this poorly designed for television coverage.

Friday, November 21, 2025

Chabert Holiday Watch: Matchmaker Santa (2012)




Watched:  11/20/2025
Viewing:  First
Director:  Davis S. Cass Sr.

Job: Baker
Location of story:  Somewhere in California?  Outside of San Francisco
new skill:  Elfing
Job of Man:  Bitch Boy to a CEO
Goes to/ Returns to:  Goes to
Food:  Cookies


Editor's note: I was unable to find this movie during ChabertQuest2025, but saw it was now available on "UP Faith and Family", and so got a 7 day free trial.

So, new to me and not a Hallmark movie, exactly.  This movie is about a Santa who will stop at literally nothing to make sure Lacey Chabert and her boyfriend break up so that he may force her into a relationship with someone else.  Kris Kringle will bend the very laws of nature, create life, destroy roads...  

This Santa is mad with power.

Anyway, for a long time, and maybe still, a lot of the movies on Hallmark were technically independent movies.  I am unclear how it works now, but basically Hallmark would help fund movies in exchange for North American distribution.  But after X amount of time, these movies were back in the hands of the producers.  And so it was I now am enjoying a 7-day trial of the UP Faith and Family Network.

Part of how Hallmark had so many movies in the years where it seemed like a factory cranking out way too many movies, this was the trick.  Hallmark was essentially licensing very cheap indie movies, and part of them funding those movies was that Hallmark was given script approval for kicking in some percent of the film's budget.  

And, thus, the sameness of Hallmark.  They managed to pull off low-risk/ high-reward for years and people learned to write for them.

Thus, Matchmaker Santa (2012) is also, technically, Chabert's first Hallmark Christmas movie.  So, bit of trivia for you.

But you want to know about Santa and his unstoppable interest in getting people to hook up.

Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Chabert Hallmark Holiday Watch: A Merry Scottish Christmas (2023)

what do you know?  I watched this on the 2nd anniversary of the movie's release


Watched:  11/18/2025
Format:  Hallmark
Viewing:  Second
Director:  Dustin Rikert

Job: Doctor
Location of story:  Somewhere in Scotland
new skill:  Lording over peasants
Job of Man:  Groundskeeper
Goes to/ Returns to:  Goes to
Event:  Some underwhelming solstice thing, a banger of a party and a ball
Food:  liquor, really


So, I thought I'd covered this movie because of the image I used for my 2023 Hallmark report when I was moving too fast assembling my ChabertQuest2025 list.  But I had not.  So here we go.

This is a movie about a naive American doctor and her family who inherit a Scottish castle.  However, the diabolical groundskeeper seduces and bamboozles the doctor into falling for him so that he may claim ownership of the lands he's worked since he was a child.  That same labor presumably led to his father's early demise, and this is his revenge.  

With dead eyed smiles, he earns the trust of the stressed out family, offering to take care of everything and let them live off the fat of their inheritance.  

Unfortunately the movie ends just after he's successfully bedded the heiress doctor but before we can put his nefarious schemes into motion, so we never see that part.

(take 2)

Monday, November 17, 2025

Chabert Hallmark Holiday Watch: Haul Out the Holly - Lit Up (2023)





Watched: 11/16/2025
Format:  Hallmark
Viewing:  second
Director:  Maclain Nelson

Job: Copywriter/ Editor?  She never works during this whole movie
Location of story:  Evergreen Lane - which I think is in Salt Lake City
new skill:  Mastery of the Christmas Arts
Man:  Wes Brown
Job of Man:  Architect
Goes to/ Returns to:  stays in same place (this is the 2nd installment)
Event:  Several ongoing Christmas festivities
Food:  Cookies


Editor's Note:  So, y'all.  Despite my stated goals and belief I'd done a phenomenal job documenting ChabertQuest 2025 (pats self on back), I messed this one up.  Yes, I'd seen this movie, but had I written it up?  I had not.  Thought I had, but that was a lie I told myself, and discovered my error in July.  I felt terrible as we agreed the the deal was I would watch and review all of the movies I could find starring one Lacey Chabert and you'd be like "why are you doing this?"

So, here we are, rewatching this one.  And writing up this movie.  For you, the people.


There were really only so many directions one could go with the premise of Haul Out The Holly (2022), the first film in what is now a trilogy.  

The premise of the first film is that a woman breaks up with her live-in boyfriend and goes home for Christmas, only to find that her parents weren't expecting her and are actually moving to a seniors' condo in Florida.  She's essentially left behind in her parents' McMansion.  However, her own father was head of the HOA, and he set up a very Christmassy set of rules, which Chabert finds herself required to adhere to (despite the fact she does not own the house) and is force marched through the holiday season.  

Guys, she also falls for Man nextdoor along the way.

So... we end the film with Christmas, love, and a 5000 square foot house in which she'll creep around like a Victorian ghost, I guess.  

But what next?  Haul out another holiday?  Tragedy strikes Evergreen Lane?  She casually starts putting out inverted pineapples when the neighbors come over?

Here in the sequel, Emily (Chabert) been gifted her parents house, she's all-in on Christmas madness, dating Man, and helping out with the neighborhood festivities.  

However, as Christmas approaches and events are just beginning, the Jolly Johnsons, winners of a Christmas-themed reality show, move into the cul-de-sac.  To the longtime Christmas-nerds of Evergreen Lane, this is like having your favorite quarterback or rock star move in and they flip out (yes, these movies operate in a cartoonish heightened reality).  

Sunday, October 12, 2025

Chabert Hallo-Watch: Haul Out The Halloween (2025)



Watched: 10/12/2025
Format:  Hallmark+
Viewing:  First
Director:  Maclain Nelson

Job: Copywriter/ Children's Book Author
Location of story:  Evergreen Lane - which I think is in Salt Lake City
new skill:  it's an old skill remembered - how to draw and write kid's books
Man:  Wes Brown
Job of Man:  Architect
Goes to/ Returns to:  stays in same place (this is the 3rd installment)
Food:  Cookies


Well, Ms. Lacey Chabert has released a new movie upon the Hallmark channel, and so we're back!

This is the third installment in the Haul Out the Holly Saga, a movie series which is about people who are absolutely nuts for holidays, their HOA and rules.  We've abandoned Christmas for Halloween this go-round, which - given the first movies are about going over the top with traditions - seems appropriate.  

This is, I should mention, a wacky comedy series with everything about the 'burbs heightened and zany, so don't take it too seriously.  It's a departure from Hallmark's usual "the characters are all smiling to let you know a joke happened" style of comedy, and, instead, works more like an 00's-era comedy - complete with joke-every-15-second pop culture referencing and a rap by Octogenarians.  

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Happy Birthday, Lacey Chabert

those aren't balloons, they're bubbles of Hubba Bubba


Well, we watched 70-something Lacey Chabert movies in the last year, so we'd be remiss not giving a birthday shoutout to the Hallmark Queen of Christmas.  

As of yesterday, we've also now seen all of Chabert's reality show, "Celebrations".*  And, I guess, Chabert's holiday collection has now dropped at Hallmark.com.   So I guess make Chabert happy and line her pockets by buying some stuff.



*It was a slow weekend as Jamie was not feeling great. 




Thursday, September 18, 2025

Hallmark Christmas Movie Schedule 2025 Drops

Ms. Chabert, set to grace Christmas screens this Holiday season, seen here having pulled this man's finger



Well, Hallmark has released their schedule for the Christmas movies coming in 2025.  Despite the fact it's September and in the 90's where I live, over in Hallmark HQ, it might as well be time to rock around the Christmas tree.

Hallmark isn't completely ignoring the rest of the year.  They're currently showing movies with a fall theme on the channels (although it's not officially autumn until September 22nd).  And they're even getting spooky this year as Ms. Chabert and Hallmark stalwart Wes Brown will appear in the Halloween themed third chapter in the "Haul Out the Holly" saga.  

Meanwhile, Hallmark ornaments are coming in waves for 2025, with an official Lacey Chabert ornament coming in October.  (I am well aware of the Superman ornament, thanks).  

Here's the Hallmark checklist of new content:

Saturday, June 21, 2025

Chabert Whoops Watch: The Sweetest Christmas (2017)




Watched:  06/21/2025
Format:  Hallmark
Viewing:  First
Director:  Terry Ingram

Job: Receptionist/ Would-Be Baker
Location of story:  Helen, Georgia (which is apparently a real place themed like a German village?)
new skill:  ruining two men's lives
Man:  Lea Coco (no, really)
Job of Man:  Italian Restauranteur
Goes to/ Returns to:  has returned home
Event:  National Gingerbread Competition
Food:  oh, Gingerbread, man.  So much Gingerbread.


Well, whoops.  

I thought I'd watched this one, but... and follow me here... I found out through an odd way that I had *not* watched it.  I had confused a Valentine's movie about chocolate with The Sweetest Christmas (2017) while managing the Chabert-a-Tron 3000 and checked it off.

Hey, moron... how did you puzzle that one out?  you may be asking yourself.  

Saturday, June 14, 2025

ChabertQuest 2025: I Have Watched 72 Lacey Chabert Movies since November




I am full of bad ideas.  

Once, I went vegetarian for a full year just to prove that I could do it (it was a disaster, but short being force fed sausage pizza at a work meeting, I remained vegetarian all year).  

I have decided to own every issue of Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen and Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane.  

To what end do I do these things?  I do not know.

But, worse, sometimes someone else's bad ideas will land in my head, and I'll think "yes, I will do that thing", especially if it's absolutely pointless. 

This post marks the end of ChabertQuest2025.  It began as a germ of an idea that became a marathon.  A Chabert-a-thon, if you will.  And now I can put down my remote and put away my Christmas ornaments.  We have done the thing we set out to do.

Some numbers:
  • As of this writing, Lacey Chabert has 183 IMDB entries
  • Of these credits, she has 87 live action feature films / TV films listed
  • Of those, I was unable to locate 14, as they are not streaming or otherwise readily available.
  • I refused to rewatch one of the movies because I'd already seen it and had a blog post about it
  • Thus, since the holiday movie season began in November 2024, I have watched 72 separate movies in which Lacey Chabert appears.

Who we are and how we came to be


Last Christmas, rather than taking in a medley of new and classic Holiday movies as we usually do, we thought "we're doing all Hallmark."  After all, we've seen all of the usual Christmas films a few dozen times.  I can keep White Christmas a bit fresher if I don't sit through it every year.  So we just leaned into what's usually something we'd normally catch pieces of, but don't always watch all the way through.  

By the end of the holidays, I'd watched 9 Lacey Chabert holiday movies.  

Why Chabert for my Christmas merriment?  Well, not all Hallmark stars are of the same caliber.  

Sorry, other actors.  It's true.*  There is absolutely a Hallmark talent pool of leads who get re-cast, over and over, and here at The Signal Watch, Lacey Chabert is considered better at the acting and festive thing than the average Hallmark bear. If you're going to watch one of these movies, might as well watch one that's not a dud.

Randy, who is not good for me, upon reviewing my Holiday movie post from 2024 said "now you should watch every Lacey Chabert movie".  And I was like "ha ha.   That's insane."  

And then I was like:  ha ha... that is insane....  maybe so insane it just might....

And here we are.

Who is Lacey Chabert?

Friday, June 13, 2025

Chabert Watch: Gypsy (1993)

Midler took center stage?  Whaaaaat....?




Watched:  06/13/2025
Format:  Prime
Viewing:  First
Director:  Emile Ardolino


Everything's coming up Chabert!

So, I'd never seen Gypsy before in any form.  A snip of the Natalie Wood version was on once and we agreed we'd watch the full thing at some point and... we did not.

This film, Gypsy (1993), was a TV movie that aired in December of my Freshman year of college, so I am not shocked I was unaware of it existing.  All I really knew about Gypsy was:

  1. Jamie once played a small part in a community theatre version of the play 
  2. Broadway queen Audra McDonald is currently receiving rave reviews for her portrayal of Momma Rose.  
  3. It's sort of about the ultimate stage mom
  4. It's the origin story of a real life stripper turned writer turned pop figure,  Gypsy Rose Lee, who was a fixture in American culture from the 30's to the 60's
This TV movie was an adaptation of a Stephen Sondheim musical of the same name, which was originally on Broadway starting in the late 1950's and ran for some time.  The musical, in turn, was based on Lee's own memoirs, which had been a popular book.

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Chabert Watch: Daddy Day Care (2003)





Watched:  06/11/2025
Format:  Prime
Viewing:  First
Director:  Steve Carr


Sometimes coming into a movie and seeing it has an extraordinarily low rating sets you up for success.  Daddy Day Care (2003) has a 39 on Metacritic* and a Critics score at RT of 27%.  

Honestly, I thought it was fine.  Not good, but fine.  

It knew what it was - an excuse for kids to be cute and throw in some wholesome jokes.  It was clearly intended to be a family movie, and so I can see how critics decided this was bad, hoping for the Eddie Murphy of the 80's and 90's.  And I don't automatically give Eddie Murphy a pass.  I think I declared Candy Cane Lane the worst movie of 2023.  But as a family movie based on its own merits, sure.  Daddy Day Care (2003) is.. fine.  (I also have seen so many awful movies of late, this feels like Casablanca by comparison)

The movie stars Murphy as a guy trying to run a health food team within a processed food company, who loses his job when his project "Veggie-O's Cereal" bombs.  Coming with him is his side-kick, Jeff Garlin.  They recruit their former mail-boy, Steve Zahn, to work with the kids.  Regina King plays Murphy's wife, who has just started working as an attorney.  Anjelica Huston plays the head of a school/ daycare that's run like an intense prep academy.  Lacey Chabert plays her assistant.  Jonathan Katz plays a City employee keeping tabs on the daycare.  Laura Kightlinger is in there.  Kevin Nealon.  Siobhan Fallon Hogan.  And a very small Elle Fanning is one of the kids.

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Chabert Watch: Christmas in Rome (2019)



Watched:  06/09/2025
Format:  Hallmark
Viewing:  1.5
Director:  Ernie Barbarash 

Job: Tour Guide
Location of story:  Hallmark Rome
new skill:  Not going off the rails
Man:  Sam Page
Job of Man:  Business Man
Goes to/ Returns to:  Man goes to Rome
Event:  Business Deal
Food:  a bunch of Italian stuff I can't spell and/ or remember


So.  (deep breath)  I believe this is both the last Lacey Chabert Hallmark movie and last Chabert Christmas movie I have to watch during ChabertQuest 2025.  

Please clap.

If you haven't been around, we're nearing the end of watching every live-action movie in which Lacey Chabert appears that we could get legitimate access to.  And we're almost done.  It started in November by accident, became intentional in January, and it has been a journey.  

One of my self-imposed rules was that if I had already seen a movie and written it up, I was allowed to skip said movie.  Which is how I skipped The Tree That Saved Christmas.  But if I had seen it and failed to write it up, I had to re-watch it and post on it.  And, I know I watched a good chunk/ all of Christmas in Rome (2019) just this last Christmas while doing other things.  And then just didn't mention it.  I forgot or something.  

So I put this one off til last and was in no rush to prioritize the movie.

Anyway, this movie stars Chabert and Sam Page, who you may remember as Joan's would-be-doctor husband on Mad Men, a role that I am sure he has mixed feelings about at this juncture.  Page plays a Businessman from New York who is sent to Rome, just before the holidays, to look into acquiring a famed Italian company that handmakes high-end plates and bowls or something.  And because it's Rome, it is also *art*.